Sister of the Hero
by shiiki
Summary: [SPOILERS FOR THE BURNING MAZE] Thalia gets some bad news.


**A/N** : There are MASSIVE SPOILERS for _The Burning Maze_ in here. Be warned. Do not proceed if you haven't read the book and do not want to be spoiled.

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 **Sister of the Hero**

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Her first hint that something is wrong is when Artemis shows up.

This wouldn't have been a big deal back when the goddess of the Hunt actually, you know, hunted regularly with her pack. But ever since things went pear-shaped with that Greek-Roman schism, the gods haven't exactly been flocking down to say hi. Thalia's been pretty much running the show for three years now.

It's who Artemis shows up _with_ as well—the satyr looks hardly a day older than when Thalia last saw him at the Battle of Manhattan (well, fine, _she_ looks exactly the same, too, but in Grover's case, it's less halted ageing and more satyrs age incredibly slowly).

Last she heard, Grover was summoned to guide Apollo and Meg through the Labyrinth in search of the third crazy emperor bent on taking over the world. The fact that he's here now, having clearly gone out of his way to find her (not to mention he's in the company of Artemis and not a blush is on his cheeks) … well, if it's to announce that all their problems have been miraculously solved, she'll eat her tiara.

'I have bad news,' Grover says.

That slight tremor in his words, borne of an attempt to keep one's voice steady that isn't quite succeeding, tells Thalia exactly what sort of bad news this is going to be. She's experienced it enough herself, after all. The Battle of Manhattan. The Battle of San Juan. The Battle of the Waystation. She's no stranger to loss. There've been too many in the past few years.

It strikes her how many more she may have to face in the centuries to come. She remembers the weary look her predecessor Zoë Nightshade used to have. Zoë led the Hunt for three thousand years. Thalia is starting to understand she was so at peace with passing on.

Then Grover says, 'It's about Jason.'

And everything stops.

It steals up on her, sometimes, these moments where the world moves in slow motion and she becomes rooted to the ground, silent and still. It must be how she experienced the world for six years (not that she actually remembers being a pine tree). She's been trying to break the habit for years now—she _hates_ being still—but it's an insidious one.

It's actually ironic how she ended up as a tree. After L.A., after she lost Jason—after her mom failed them so badly … no, after _she_ failed her baby brother. She ran away and never looked back and vowed she'd always keep moving. Keep moving on.

She'd never stay still.

Until she did (yeah, thanks for that, Dad).

But she's frozen now, replaying those three little words from Grover's mouth. _It's about Jason._

A lot of her memories from before (she's never really sure what she means when she thinks _before_ —before the Hunters? Before arborification? Before Luke?) are fuzzy now, but there's one that stands out clearly: the day Beryl Grace brought her children to the Wolf House in Sonoma.

 _'Ah, I forgot the picnic basket,' her mother said, tugging Jason away from Thalia. 'Would you get it, dear?'_

And Thalia went, because Jason was hungry and if nobody fetched the food, he might try eating rocks this time (and even at nine Thalia knew a mom who managed to get wasted while her two-year-old ate a _stapler_ was not to be trusted to keep said toddler properly fed).

When she came back, he was gone.

The hurt that ripples through her now isn't like the explosion of grief that spurred her into action back then, raging at her mom and throwing the picnic basket at her head (she thinks she may have hurled a couple of rocks as well). This is a shockwave fanning out from the site of that old wound—the one that started to scab when she met Luke (sometimes she wonders if she was so drawn to him because he reminded her of her dead brother, blond and blue-eyed and always gazing at her with those worshipful eyes … almost as though Amaltheia knew who she was missing and brought her to the closest possible substitute for family). The one that knitted into a thin scar two years ago when she found her brother at last. It is a serrated blade that digs into that closed up scar, ripping it back open.

There will be no hope of stitching it back again after this.

Thalia forces herself to move, to unroot. Her fingers uncurl one by one. When did she even clench them?

'He got dragged into your quest, didn't he?'

It was only a week ago that she told Apollo and Meg to say hi to Jason if they passed through L.A. She wishes she'd never mentioned it, never given them the slightest indication that he existed.

Hades, she wishes she'd gone and dropped in on him herself.

Anything that might have changed things.

What if, what if, what if.

The story comes out in Grover's faltering voice. Thalia touches her face. Her cheeks are dry. Where are her tears?

'Are you sure?' she hears herself say. 'Was there a—a body?'

She made that mistake once. She believed her mom when she said Hera had taken Jason. Technically it was true, but if she'd searched harder, if she'd pushed further …

More what ifs.

Did she mention, she hates _what ifs_ , too?

'I didn't see—him,' Grover stammers. 'I wasn't with him. But it's real.'

 _Why weren't you there?_ she wants to yell. _Weren't you the guide?_ How did it become _Jason's_ fight?

But she knows the answer. She knows viscerally what must have happened. A last stand. A desperate need to save his friends. The acceptance that his life for theirs was a worthy price.

She's been there herself, after all.

Apollo, Meg, Piper—they were his Luke, Annabeth, and Grover.

The irony tastes like ash. They grew up apart, but her little brother turned out just like her anyway.

Only Dad didn't come through for Jason.

'My brother and his, ah, demigod master, are taking him to Camp Jupiter,' Artemis says gently. 'He'll get a proper Roman burial.'

Grover nods. 'I—I guess he'd want that?' He looks at her uncertainly, and Thalia realises he doesn't know. He doesn't really _know_ the boy—the man—who sacrificed himself for his friends.

And … neither does she. For all she loves her brother … loved her brother (can she still use the present tense if he's gone?) … she doesn't know what he would have wanted, or where his real home was, or who else he called family. She never had a chance to know him as the man he'd become.

It's Luke all over again. All those missing years and by the time she had a chance to grapple with the new person they became, she lost them. And the fact that they died as heroes isn't much comfort.

(She wasn't there when Luke died, either.)

This time, it's her own fault. She chose to become a Hunter. It's not like she regrets her decision. Not really. Mostly.

But she can't help wondering—if she'd been free of her current responsibilities, could she have spent the past three years with her brother? Would she have been with him at the end?

Could she have taken his place?

'Caligula is going there, too,' Grover says grimly. 'To—finish what he started. Apollo and Meg are going to try and stop him, but the prophecy we got from the Erythraean Oracle, it said they'd only succeed if they had help from Bellona's daughter.'

 _Bellona's daughter._ She remembers a warehouse ambush turned quickly on its head, her knife held back at her own throat. A girl who was so much deadlier and captivating than Jason had managed to describe.

A girl who had known him better than Thalia ever had the chance to.

Thalia closes her eyes. 'I need to go there, then.'

Technically this would be dereliction of duty. They haven't found the infernal Teumessian Fox, and Camp Jupiter is in the opposite direction of their tracking. But duty pales in the face of her burning need to bring her brother's murderer to justice.

If they wanted her to put duty first, they should have made her the Roman, she thinks bitterly.

It's utter folly to challenge a goddess. Thalia does it anyway, looking up with defiance in her eyes.

But there's a funny look on Artemis's face. Part compassion, part … regret? Trepidation? Almost as if they are in the same boat.

Technically, Artemis is Thalia's sister, though she's never really thought about it that way. Now, though, the unspoken agreement that passes through them is definitely not from lady to lieutenant, but from one sister to another. She'll let Thalia make this decision for herself. She won't pass judgement.

Artemis may not get boys, but she does understand what it means to have a brother. And maybe she even gets now what it might be like to lose one.

Maybe Artemis even _wants_ her to go. Because her hands are tied—the catch-22 of being a deity. She cannot order her Hunters to interfere even if she wants to.

But _Thalia_ can.

And she'll go to Camp Jupiter. She'll find this Caligula and avenge Jason. She'll give her brother the farewell that twice now she's failed to say.

(There will be no third chances.)

And if Reyna Ramírez-Arellano is the key to taking down these emperors, then Thalia is damn well going to be fighting by her side.

Because she is Thalia, sister of Jason, and nobody— _nobody_ —gets away with hurting the people she loves.

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 **A/N** : I know ... so much from me this weekend? And sorry this thing has no plot or substance it's just 1600 words of angst and I don't think I'm done yet. I'm DEALING WITH THE ANGST okay guys can't help it RR invoked Melpomene gaaaaaaah.

Also I'm kind of pulling out my hair now because I had been intending to crosspost this Jason-centric fic for weeks now and just got too busy and now I'm like oh shit, I should've done it because it's completely AU now but maybe I should anyway as a tribute to the poor guy. Except if I say anything of the sort on it, that's kind of spoilery. *headdesk*


End file.
